• FINDING AND KEEPING WORKERS IS INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT with surveys reporting up to two-thirds of candidates only willing to accept a job offer if they know and agree with a company’s purpose, and some 90% claiming they are willing to trade a percentage of their earnings for greater meaning at work.”  Even more so than compensation, employee recruitment & retention is now primarily related to meeting their “emotional & psychological needs for work to be interesting, meaningful, and absent frustration felt when being micromanaged or treated unfairly.” A McKinsey global survey of nearly 50,000 people found only 16% who rated ‘high income’ as more important than having an interesting job, and that, regardless of income level, ‘well-being’ at work is one of the most important factors in decisions whether to stay or go.  Employer practices that can make an enormous difference include: (1) Communicating the ‘why’ behind tasks to instill meaning to employees’ work; (2) Continuous Performance feedback oriented toward problem solving; (3) Giving workers discretion over appropriate decisions. DCG have decades of experience in developing strategies to attract, motivate and retain employees. We’re happy to provide courtesy consultation.
  • THE LATEST CALIFORNIA ABSURDITY: The ‘Family Law: Gender Identity’ Bill heads toward final passage this week, defining the state’s new standard for a minor’s ‘well-being’ to include “a parent’s affirmation of their kid’s identity (irrespective of age) as part of the child’s health, safety & welfare. Also, schools, churches, hospitals, other organizations interacting with children would be required to affirm Gender Transitions by default, or risk charges of child abuse, with potential for the state to take the kid away from home.” When does this insanity stop?? [RED STATE – 6/9/23]
  • THE LIKELIHOOD IS THAT “FUTURE GENERATIONS will find at least one part of today’s contemporary morality almost unintelligible, querying HOW could decent people have believed that?  And they may well have to conclude that we were just stupid… ‘Stupidity’ is not incompatible with intelligence or higher educational achievement, but more the property of a political culture than of the individuals in it…  When combined with lack of necessary intellectual equipment to see oneself and world, the result is an inability to make sense of what is happening, and thus a tendency to force phenomena into crude distorting pigeonholes… Unlike character flaws, stupidity is primarily a property of groups or traditions versus individuals, since most of our concepts & mental tools evolve from the society we are raised in… At the head of almost every dumb movement, you will find the Stupid in charge, especially politics, where a stupid slogan chimes with a stupid voter, mirroring the way they see the world.”  [PSYCHE – 12/15/22]
  • GET READY! WE’RE ON THE ABSOLUTE PATH TOWARDS A CULTURAL ‘RESET,’ consistent with a pattern over the past five centuries, where societies enter a new Era every generation or so changing how they feel about themselves, the culture, nation and future, called ‘Turnings,’ and every four Turnings (roughly every century) the cycle goes full circle: The 1st  Turning is when prior chaos subsides and individualism weakens (in America this was after WWII); 2nd Turning becomes an era of passionate spiritual upheaval, when civic order comes under attack from new ‘Values’ like aggressive moralism (viz the 60s Hippies); 3rd Turn evolves to a period of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, with young adults becoming hostile toward the corruption of civic life (Millennials); “the 4th Turning – where we are today – becomes a crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when a new ‘Values’ regime propels replacement of old civic order and the nation’s foundational culture is upended.” Today’s Activist Progressive views have been shaped predominantly from social media texts/ tweets/ blurbs – on gender & racial diversity, social consciousness, marriage & religious irrelevance, corporate avarice, income inequality, environmental concerns, world order – with little, if any, perspective on life before the Digital World. Historical patterns suggest the likelihood that “sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression & WWII.”   [THE FOURTH TURNING – Strauss & Howe]
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: “Never argue with a fool.”  https://biggeekdad.com/2023/06/never-argue-with-a-fool/

California Community Colleges are required to accept any student application which has a high school diploma attached, without verification or even a social security number. Unsurprisingly, some 460,000 ‘ghost student’ applications since last summer – one in every five submitted – turns out to have been fraudulent, and scammers obtaining federal funds without the fed even verifying the family income qualification. One local fraud ring got nearly $1 million before being caught and indicted. 

Meanwhile, kids entering 6th– 8th grade are now welcome at Pride Summer Camps, invited to “build community with other LGBTQ+ allies.”  Universities of Wisconsin and Evansville now offer camp activities “designed primarily to provide a deeper understanding of queer history, health topics & wellness… peppering progress with our all-new idea of gender identity.”

Word of the Week: INTAXICATION – Euphoria of getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to begin with.